


The course of true love never did run smooth

by MangaFreak15



Category: Bleach
Genre: M/M, POV Outsider, University Student Kurosaki Ichigo, UraIchi Week 2020, drabble-ish
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-31
Updated: 2020-05-31
Packaged: 2021-03-02 22:28:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,280
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24474277
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MangaFreak15/pseuds/MangaFreak15
Summary: Shinya's view on the Kurosaki Ichigo Shitshow of Life.(UraIchi Week 2020 - Day 7: POV Outsider)
Relationships: Kurosaki Ichigo/Urahara Kisuke
Comments: 5
Kudos: 260
Collections: UraIchi Week 2020





	The course of true love never did run smooth

**Author's Note:**

> One last piece from me for UraIchi week before I take a break. In the past month I've written almost 40k words, which is a _lot_ for me. Add to that my day job and the fact that I haven't been sleeping well, so I'm feeling pretty pooped right now. Cheers.
> 
> Fun fact: this was supposed to be 500 word drabble. Clearly I'm bad at that.

Sakaki Shinya’s university roommate is friendly (despite the constant scowl), but also a tad strange. His hair is a shade of bright orange that _seems_ unnatural, but when asked about it, the young man just sighs and tells him that it isn’t dyed. The thinly-veiled irritation beneath the neutral tone speaks volumes of how often he’s been asked that particular question, so Shinya just shrugs and drops it (and pretends not to see the relief cross his new roommate’s face).

His roommate introduces himself as Kurosaki Ichigo, from Karakura Town. Shinya shakes his hand and says he’s from Osaka. He’s been working hard to make sure his accent isn’t particularly noticeable, especially amongst the crowds of Tokyo locals. Ichigo just laughs and says that he doesn’t have to keep up the pretenses with him, because he knows a couple of people with the same speaking style and that they are, in his words, _badass._

(Shinya doesn’t think about it until later, when both of them are laying in bed and trying to sleep in this new place away from home, that Ichigo had said ‘same speaking style’ and not ‘from Osaka’, but he doesn’t have much time to ponder that little train of thought before he drifts off.)

Shinya’s roommate is an English Literature major, which would make more sense if he’d gone to university overseas rather than Tokyo. He looks at the collection of Shakespeare plays stacked side-by-side in alphabetical order on Kurosaki’s desk, and resolves to ask him about it when his roommate returns from his first class of the semester.

(He doesn’t get much of an answer beyond Kurosaki saying that he likes them, their plots and their intricacies, the masterful way that Shakespeare weaves his words. That just makes Shinya wonder if his roommate has a _thing_ for people who arm themselves with prose and poetry instead of guns.)

They settle into a comfortable routine within the next few weeks, commiserating over the workload and essays and midterms together. Shinya goes out to party a few times, but never staggers back to their room drunk out of his mind or brings anyone back to ‘have fun.’ He’s Osakan born and raised and knows how to have a good time, but he also respects the sanctity of their shared space. He imagines Kurosaki is grateful for that. 

On the Saturday of their seventh week into the semester, one of Kurosaki’s acquaintances finally shows up. Shinya hesitates to term the man as ‘Kurosaki’s friend’ because he, well… he looks like a bum. He can’t tell if the man is in cosplay or if those old-fashioned clothes are what the man actually wears on a daily basis, but coupled with the garish striped bucket hat and the honest-to-god _cane_ that he carries about, the uneven patches of stubble on his face, down to his wooden geta, Shinya can only think that he must be some sort of homeless person who Kurosaki befriended in his hometown (he doesn’t really believe it himself, because what homeless person has enough money to travel all the way to Tokyo to meet with a college student?).

But when that man shows up, it’s the first time that Shinya actually sees his roommate smile, and it gives him whiplash. Kurosaki, _smiling?_ It’s like seeing the sun peek out from behind dark storm clouds, it’s so bright and warm and… and just so beautiful that Shinya wants to bang his head on his desk for thinking about it. No, just no. _Don’t go developin' a crush on yer goddamn roommate, ya fool!_ he groans to himself. He’s bisexual, yes, and is an equal opportunist when it comes to gender, but crushing on his roommate seems like a one-way ticket to disaster. If that man can get that sort of reaction out of Kurosaki though, he’s definitely more than just a simple acquaintance. A friend? A mentor? A lover? Shinya doesn’t know.

(The man introduces himself as Urahara Kisuke, resident shopkeeper and scientist. That is so far off from Shinya’s initial judgment that it may as well be true.)

The man is the first of Kurosaki’s friends to show up, but he’s not the last. There’s a guy in glasses who gives off a standoffish air (he’s a medical student, no surprise there), a pair of junior-high girls who tackle his roommate with delighted shouts of “Ichi-nii!” (he’s heard all about Kurosaki’s precious sisters and how much they love him, which shows when the fair-haired one shoves a giant basket of food into her brother’s arms and scolds him for not eating enough, to which he sheepishly apologizes), two other girls around his and Kurosaki’s age, one with orange hair slightly darker than Kurosaki’s, the other with black hair that shines slightly purple in the light (the shorter one babbles about all the new and interesting foods that she gets to try in university, which gives Shinya pause because some of the food combinations that she comes up with are frankly horrifying to imagine), and a very tall and muscular man with foreign looks and dressed in the brightest Hawaiian-print button-up he owns (apparently this ‘Chad’ guy is going to become a pro-wrestler, and Shinya believes it).

But the weirdest of Kurosaki’s friends are also strangely the most violent. There’s a tiny black-haired girl who kicks his roommate as a greeting instead of saying hello, a tall guy with bright red hair in a spiky do who challenges Kurosaki to a spar and is covered in tattoos like it's going out of style (though what style that is, Shinya can't say, because he’s never met anyone with a worse fashion sense than that guy, and he’s met the _bum),_ a blonde in a white collar shirt and tie with a brown newsboy cap over his head, who grins and teases Kurosaki and, in the same breath, professes his undying love to several female students across campus (which gets him slapped multiple times, not that it seemed to bother him), a bald man who tries to shove his roommate into a wall and then leaps out the window cackling madly as Kurosaki furiously gives chase (Shinya isn’t even going to _touch_ that one), and finally, a man with blue hair who actually throws Kurosaki through a wall (several walls, in fact, and Shinya would be more alarmed at the sheer destruction if he hadn’t seen the same walls standing whole and unblemished the next day).

Shinya is absolutely not going to ask Kurosaki how he met any of these nutters. In this case, he'd probably be better off _not_ knowing, and if anyone asks, he can claim plausible deniability on the whole thing, blame his roommate for the chaos, and call it a day.

By the end of the semester, he is sadly inured to the whole thing, Kurosaki’s weird, ridiculous friends coming and going as they please (and it’s even weirder that the university never says anything about them either).

Once finals are over and they are free to return home for Summer Break, Urahara shows up again. This time though, Kurosaki takes the man’s hand and leads him out of the building. Shinya glances out the window and sees them sit on a bench underneath the magnolia tree in the courtyard, leaning together, hands clasped, and simply enjoying each other’s company. He sees Urahara turn and press a kiss to Kurosaki’s head, and how his roommate relaxes against him even more, almost laying against the man in a boneless heap. They are the very definition of lovers.

_Ah,_ he thinks as he turns away to finish packing for his trip home. _So that’s how it is._

  
  


**Author's Note:**

> Please leave a comment before you go~


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